John T. Glavine

John Thomas Glavine (1927 to 2016), whose name the town reports print as both Glavine and Glavin, was a Billerica building contractor who spent more than a decade on the School Committee and the Permanent School Building Committee during the years when the town built most of its modern schools. He was born in Somerville on November 21, 1927, the son of Thomas J. and Bridget T. (Galway) Glavine, and grew up in Billerica, where he graduated from Howe High School in 1945. He served in the Army in the Second World War, and in 1952 he was one of the founders of the Glavin Construction Company in Billerica.

His first town offices were on the Finance Committee, where he was serving in 1962 and was secretary in 1963, and in Town Meeting, where the members of Precinct Five chose him to fill a vacancy in 1963. In 1962 he ran for the Planning Board and lost to Gordon C. Brainerd, 2,172 votes to 1,655. In March 1964 he was elected to the School Committee with 2,597 votes, and he was its secretary in 1964 and 1965 and its chairman in 1966 and 1967, the years in which the John F. Kennedy School opened, in February 1966, with 724 pupils. He was also one of the town's members on the Regional Vocational School District Planning Committee, whose reports he read to town meeting in 1965 and 1966, and when the new regional district committee organized in 1966, with Richard Keane as chairman, he was elected its first vice-chairman; the district's school became the Shawsheen Valley Regional Vocational Technical School. Re-elected to the School Committee in 1967, he was vice-chairman in 1968, and in March 1970 he lost his seat to Charles L. Hallenborg, 2,122 votes to 1,868.

He had joined the Permanent School Building Committee by 1963, and he was its chairman from 1968 until his term expired on January 9, 1977. At the 1968 town meeting he reported for the committee when the town voted $25,000 for plans for a new junior high school. His report for 1969 told of the Locke Junior High School, occupied in December 1968 "while still incomplete" and dedicated in the spring, and of the Hajjar Elementary School, "beset with strikes and delays"; the committee met weekly "because of the critical nature of lack of school space in Billerica," and he warned that enrollment would soon pass 10,000 pupils. The Hajjar School, with thirty-one classrooms, opened in September 1970 with more than 1,000 pupils, and that year the committee voted to name the new middle school on Floyd Street for the retired school physician Dr. Orland Smith Marshall. The Marshall Middle School opened in September 1972 with 1,500 pupils in grades six to eight, and the committee then planned the addition to the high school and the renovation of the Memorial and Howe buildings, for which a special town meeting early in 1973 voted $10,300,000, with the state paying 65 percent of the cost. When the committee was dissolved in 1977 its final report credited him with fourteen years of service on it.

In 1971 he was elected to the nine-member Charter Commission that drafted the town charter put to the voters in 1972, and for many years he was a Town Meeting member. He was a founding member of Billerica Little League, and in retirement he looked after many of the town's athletic fields. He was named to the Billerica Memorial High School Sports Hall of Fame. He died at Lahey Hospital in Burlington on November 30, 2016, at the age of 89, and was buried in Fox Hill Cemetery in Billerica.

References

1. Lowell Sun obituary, John T. Glavin Sr. (1927 to 2016): born Somerville Nov. 21, 1927, parents, Glavin Construction Co., School Committee chairman, Permanent School Building Committee, died Nov. 30, 2016, Fox Hill Cemetery
2. Billerica Town Report 1945, Howe High School graduates: John Thomas Glavin
3. Billerica Town Report 1962, annual election: Planning Board (5 years), Gordon C. Brainerd 2,172, John T. Glavine 1,655
4. Billerica Town Report 1963, committees: Permanent School Building Committee including John T. Glavine
5. Billerica Town Report 1964, annual election: School Committee (3 years), John T. Glavine 2,597, Mary H. Dooley 1,449
6. Billerica Town Report 1966, town officers: School Committee, John T. Glavine, Chairman
7. Billerica Town Report 1966, Regional Vocational School District Committee report: first meeting, Richard Keane chairman, John Glavin vice-chairman
8. Billerica Town Report 1968, annual town meeting: John T. Glavin reported for the Permanent School Building Committee; Articles 88-89, junior high school plans
9. Billerica Town Report 1969, report of the Permanent School Building Committee signed by John Glavine, Chairman (Locke and Hajjar schools)
10. Billerica Town Report 1970, annual election: School Committee, Charles L. Hallenborg 2,122, John T. Glavine 1,868
11. Billerica Town Report 1970, report of the Permanent School Building Committee signed by John T. Glavine, Chairman (Hajjar School opened, Marshall Middle School named)
12. Billerica Town Report 1971, annual election: Charter Commission, John T. Glavine 2,041 (nine elected of 17)
13. Billerica Town Report 1972, report of the Permanent School Building Committee signed by John T. Glavine, Chairman (Marshall Middle School opened; high school addition)
14. Billerica Town Report 1977, final report of the Permanent School Building Committee: John Glavine served fourteen years